


Hundred Nation Hero

by Dark_Eyed_Junco



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Dream Sex, M/M, Psychic Abilities, World Cup of Hockey, Zombies, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 22:20:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10259936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_Eyed_Junco/pseuds/Dark_Eyed_Junco
Summary: Anže Kopitar is just happy to be here.





	1. First, a dream.

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to just be a silly zombie soulbound fic (don't ask) but then it became a little earnest. I don't know. As it turns out, I really love Team Europe. Still mostly nonsense though, so you're aware of what you're getting into. 
> 
> Anže things: 
> 
> Being a good brother, featuring a sweet mustache: https://tinyurl.com/z5u8f92 
> 
> We fooled them all, boys: https://tinyurl.com/zwa5sa8
> 
> idk, he's handsome here. Also, I learned that Slovenia only has 7 rinks total: https://tinyurl.com/zk6d796 
> 
> On Leon: “At first, he was too star-struck. Too shy. Not to show what he was all about. But once he got comfortable … you saw it in [the Washington exhibition game] and you’re seeing it now. We’re going to need much more of the same, going forward,” said Kopitar.
> 
> “He was just shy around everybody. I think when I looked back when I was 20, I was probably shy too. That’s when the older guys poke him a little bit, make sure he comes out of his shell.”
> 
> His game philosophy: “We can’t run-and-gun with teams,” said Kopitar, the team captain. “Staying patient, waiting for chances, and help our goalie out — maybe it’s not the flashiest thing. It’s actually pretty boring, but it works.”
> 
>  
> 
> w/ original inspiration credit @ ionthesparrow. Thanks to thedeadparrot for editorial insight.

He dreams about himself.

The dream feels familiar, but it's not one that he's dreamt before. Maybe it's a memory, though he doesn't know if dreaming full memories is something that happens. And, it doesn't much resemble a memory.

In the dream, he's out of his body, watching himself. He's playing hockey, but many of the details are blurred. His jersey is first one color, one pattern, then another, then no color. And no pattern. Oddly, there's the sound of silverware clinking in the background and he can smell – buttered peas. He can't tell who he's playing with or who he's playing against. The men have faces, but their features pass straight through his mind without leaving traces. Not a single ripple. Strangest of all, there's no style to anyone else's play. Instantly forgettable. He can't tell, say, if there are any Russians present, or pick up any hint of the Kings' system.

Assume Kings though. What date, if it is a memory? No way of knowing for sure. Present day? Blake years; Smyth years; Richards years? He doesn't see any of those guys. No Dustin either, and he would recognize him from almost anything, the barest sense minimum – a millisecond of stride though masked by two men on from behind, or a glimpse of a shot taken crowded through traffic in the corner of his eye. Sweat smell among a hundred sweat smells, or voice sound, even if just a murmur underneath ice and metal, panting, far away, half across the rink.

None of that. Only himself.

There is a sense of age or weight to him, not just in his face but also in the bearing of his body. This feeling of maturity is strong, but he's not sure why; to his eye, he doesn't look old. Could be his age now, could be a few years younger. Five. Or no – maybe even seven. Each time he looks, he changes his mind. Actually, paying closer attention, something is off. He looks strange, more and more warped with each passing second. It's like someone has taken a picture of a picture of a picture of him. He should know his face; he does see it everyday in the mirror. It's not right for him at any age.

But the hockey is right. The hockey is him. One of those rare times – a few times a season – where for one night he's the best player in the world, tireless and smothering and always one half-step ahead of the play. Just the right amount of aggression; his body positioned at the exact right place at the exact right time, to narrow a lane, to block someone out, to force a turnover, to create a little free space for the puck on his stick.

He finds – himself? - mirroring – himself? - moving his hips, chasing the fluency of that motion, the ease, the second nature –

And then he wakes up. The hotel sheets are a mess, wound around and around, twisted, on his legs. He's breathing like he's midway through a shift.

How strange.

 


	2. Swiss relations.

Their jerseys have flag patches on the arm. He is the only Slovenian. From a distance, maybe people in the audience will mistake him for one of the Slovakians. That's alright. If he was Slovakian maybe he could buy a house on Stanley Cup Street with the others. “So, this is like the EU, right?” he asks. The players have broken down national or linguistic lines into cliques, but Anže has no one to clique with and is captain besides. So he's being a floater. Right now, he's floating next to Mark Streit. “We are separate but also together? I can speak Slovenian and then you hear, in your ear, a buzz, like this? Translation? German, French?” He pulls at the lobe of his left ear.

Streit doesn't seem to find the joke funny; he looks over at his little Swiss defense core (plus Niederreiter), like he's imagining what kind of national team he could be captaining right now if the NHL hadn't foisted Anže and the others on him. “Hm,” he says.

“Though I do speak German,” says Anže. Just to make conversation. It seems sort of relevant.

“Ah,” says Streit. “So do I.”

His tone is very polite but there's a faint hint of mockery lingering in the air. So maybe he's not altogether thrilled. That's okay. Anže is just happy to be here. He's not had as many chances at international play as an old hand from a mid-level hockey country like Mark Streit. “Did you hear?” he asks. “Slovenia qualified for the Olympics. Earlier this month.”

Now Streit's face opens up. “Ah, Anže,” he says. He lays a hand on Anže's shoulder, squeezes. “Now that's something to be proud of. Congratulations.” His mouth twists like he's just smelled something foul. He thinks for a moment. “Provided we are released,” he adds.

That is not a fun subject, but it is a fun one to gossip about at least. Their wild speculation and hearsay quickly gathers momentum and starts to poach players from the cliques. Boundaries dissolve. The languages in the room flatten out into English, which is, after all, a very respectable European language. For now at least.

Nice, thinks Anže. Good.

**

A few exhibition games first, for warmup. The kids are both fast and skilled. Excellent players.

**

“This is kind of embarrassing, isn't it?” Krueger asks the room, after their second loss to North America. He is a very good coach. Also, a motivational speaker and football chairmen these days, according to Chara. It's too bad. He should come back to hockey full time. “4 – 0, 7 – 4, it makes us look like a joke. Frankenstein's monster, the afterthoughts. Just like everyone said. But I know we are not jokes.” Like that. Very fire and guts. Everyone sits at their stall and listens respectfully, sinners at a sermon. No one moves to dress or otherwise make noise.

“He should come back to hockey full time,” Anže tells Mark, when the speech is over. Krueger is capitalizing on the mood in the room by going around with his stare, pinning people down for full half-minutes at a time and extracting from them unspoken promises.

“I know it,” says Mark. “2006, at the Olympics, we beat Canada together. Big upset.” His turn to commune with Krueger. He nods at the end of it, then shifts focus back to Anže. “Okay,” he says. “We do this. Europe, huhm? Big upset.” He puts his fist out.

Just like that? Buy in? Anže bumps him back.

“I'll check in with Zdeno,” says Mark. “No problem. We know what has to be done. But why don't you see about the kid? He needs cheering.”

“Huh? Kid?” He didn't think their team had any kids. “Which kid?”

Mark points at Leon, who's still sitting at his locker, not moving, trapped in what looks like a reverie. He had all of about five minutes of ice time earlier today. Maybe he's not done soaking in Krueger's words. Or mortifying himself. Both? Both.

“Oh,” says Anže. “Right. Our ringer.” Twenty years old. Team baby. The average age of the team is a year or two older than even Anže, he thinks he remembers. He saw that figure mentioned in an article. He briefly wonders if that makes a worrying statement about the state of hockey development anywhere in Europe that isn't the big four. He'll ask his father about it later.

“A little youth can be good,” observes Mark, thoughtfully. Ruefully? “Sometimes wisdom is not quite enough.” He follows up that tidy aphorism with a back clap and then leaves.

Anže goes to sit next to Leon, at an adjacent empty locker. Leon doesn't notice him at first. When he does, it's with a jump and all in a rush, like the past thirty seconds snuck up on him in one.

“Anže!” Leon says. His hand stutters up, as if he was going for a wave or a shake, then falls back down to his leg.

“Please.” He smiles at him. “Kopi.”

“Kopi.”

Saying good here would probably be patronizing. He smiles again instead. Good all purpose move. “Doing okay over there?”

“Uh.” Leon seems to realize only now that the locker room is starting to clear out. Meanwhile, he's still sitting at his stall in his underwear. “Yes. Great. Thank you.”

“Planning your defection to Team North America?” he jokes. “They'd be glad to have you.”

“No. No, no-no.” Leon shakes his head. He doesn't quite look Anže head on, but even from the side he appears heart-meltingly sincere. “It's long been a dream of mine to play with you.” His eyes are definitely being aimed at the ground. From this angle it's very easy to see his eyelashes fluttering.

It is a fine thing to be flattered though. “No,” he says. “Really?”

“I will play better. I promise.”

“Oh, my friend,” says Anže, delighted. “You mistake me. I am not your coach. You don't need to promise or prove shit to me. Relax, please. It will come.”

Leon lets out a breath and nods, slowly. But then his right knee starts to jiggle up and down.

Hm. “But this whole thing you're doing,” Anže waves in the air between them, “not looking at me, that's rude, hey? I didn't think you were a rude man. You're not, are you?”

“No?”

“Then?” Leon lifts his head. They look at each other, one second, two seconds. Three. Leon's face pinkens by degrees. Anže wants him vulnerable and off-balance and waiting for what's said next. To make it stick in his mind, so he'll remember. “There's no need for this,” he tells him. “Everyone in the room is just as human as you are.”

 


	3. Leon goes for four.

Forsberg makes a bad pass, and there's a tight, controlled wheel of a turnover, all the action smoothly reversing flow back towards Sweden's net. Leon takes a heavy shot; Henrik blocks and loses his stick. Leon corrals the puck, passes it out back to open ice and then pinches towards the net. It's almost casual, the way he ends up getting his stick on Chara's shot. Like they planned it that way. Tip. That's the first one. It's always good for the kids to see their hard work rewarded.

Second goal, Leon straight outplays his man, taps the puck right underneath the defenceman's stick and picks it back up on the other side. Lotta speed right to the front of the net, roofs his shot. A very sweet sequence.

Finally a backhand, two men on, just forces it on through. Five-hole. Overpowering, but not so flashy. That would be the only complaint. If you can complain about goal three of a hat-trick.

“That was all me,” Anže says to Mark after the game. Mark chuckles and keeps stuffing clothes into his bag. “Streitsy, c'mon. That was me.”

“Sure.”

“From five minutes of ice time to a hattie. My leadership skills, wow. Who should I talk to next? You, maybe?”

“Save it. I've heard about all I can stand from you today.” He hefts his bag, gives Anže a mock salute, and heads for the door.

“Streitsy, man! This is your captain speaking. No respect,” Anže calls after him. Oh well. He looks around for another target; Leon turns his head away a second too late to disguise his keen interest in the now ended conversation. Aha. Leon at least will definitely hang on every word out of Anže's mouth. “Hey,” he says, ambling over. As he sits, he brings an arm down heavily on Leon's shoulders. “What did I tell you?”

“Yes, okay.” He'd curled down like weighted by Anže's arm, but now he rolls his shoulders up, sits straighter. He's trying to hold in a smile, but it shines out through his pores. Basically, he glows.

“You hung a hat on the king. What a game.” He squeezes Leon's shoulders. Sturdy. “Keep it up, boy.” Is that all he wants to say? He's tired and can't focus all the thoughts barging around his brain – he's coming down from the game, during breakfast he'd talked to Mark about European player development and that's rattling in there too now, plus he's thinking about Hank, and remembering his years playing in Sweden, both times. Suddenly he decides he has some pictures he would like for Leon to see. “Why don't you come up to my room later. I have something to show you.”

Leon's mouth falls half an inch open. “Huh? You – what?”

Strange. Anže thought the whole starstruck phase was over. How did Krueger put it? He can stop watching how Anže ties his skates? “Come to my room later,” he repeats, slower. He digs his thumb patiently into the ball of Leon's shoulder, then on a whim grabs him by the scruff of his neck – Leon hunches right up, defensively. It's fun to shake him around. Like roughhousing with an overgrown puppy. A very overgrown puppy. “I want to show you something.”

“Oh! - you. Okay.” He looks right, then left. Wet hair slides through Anže's fingers. “Okay. I got you. Room number?” For some reason, he's blushing as he asks.

Anže tells him and then gets dressed. Lingering in the room to bother teammates after a win is a good time because the mood is always great, but he's beginning to tire of public spaces. He wants some alone time, to go back to the hotel and have a lie down. First thing he does when he gets in.

Half an hour is enough. He gets up to order room service. Room service in DC never disappoints, at least in the places he's stayed at. Leon takes his sweet time to come round. Anže is eating pasta, one handed so he can scroll through his collection of Sweden pictures from the lockout – well, it's set to slideshow, but he keeps getting impatient and swiping at the screen to hurry it along – when there's finally a hesitant knock on the door.

The last picture in the set has Gasper in it. They're out on the slopes on a day off (to be precise, Gasper is out on the slopes; Anže is dutifully abstaining). Gasper might like to be friends with Leon. He should introduce them later. Wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, he goes to let Leon in.

Anže sees a few odd things right away. Three things. First, Leon is wearing a very nice collared shirt. Black. Most players at this time after a game prefer to lounge around in as little as possible; for instance, Anže is in sweats and a worn T-shirt (now with marinara on the sleeve). Second, Leon has put on cologne. Quite a lot. Anže's nose twitches. Third, Leon has done something with his hair. Gel might be involved. Fourth – Anže notices a fourth thing now – Leon is nervous. He's squeezing his palms together tightly like he's trying to dry them. “Hey,” he says to Anže, and manages to sound pretty chill. But then licks his lips immediately afterwards.

“You didn't have to dress up. You're making me look bad.”

“Oh, uh. Sorry. I didn't know what to – wear.”

Didn't know what to wear? Anže is halfway towards asking, or teasing again, but then he stops himself. He won't spook Leon any further, with how jumpy the guy is already. That's not fine hospitality. “Come in.” He takes a seat at the desk and shoves the plate of food to the backing wall. Room smells cheesy though, damn. His tablet is plugged into an embedded socket on the base of the desk lamp and is kicked up on its little stand. Anže reaches over to angle it towards Leon, and also to restart the slideshow. “Sweden,” he explains. “Out in the boonies. Only a few hours from Lundqvist's hometown. Those were some super long bus rides when we went to away games.”

Leon rests his hand on Anže's chairback and stoops down. After a moment he asks, “This is your brother?”

“Gasper, yeah.”

“He looks like you.”

“Good, I would hope so. Unless you know of any reason why he shouldn't?”

Leon blushes furiously. “Uh. No. Of course not - “

“Just teasing,” Anže chides. “Don't take everything I say so serious.”

“Right. Yes. I'm not!” he says. Or, sort of blurts out. It's not the most convincing thing Anže has ever heard. Leon clears his throat and blunders hastily on. “You used the lockout as a chance to play with him, right?”

“That's right.”

“That was very kind. You're a good brother.”

Anže waves his hand in the air, to dispel the praise. “No, no. Me? No. It's a big shame when children have to leave their country to play hockey. I left when I was sixteen. Don't get much time with your family. Of course, everyone has to move for hockey. But it's different, to leave your country.”

While listening, Leon makes sure to nod every few seconds. He looks very attentive.

With such a good audience, Anže is warming to his subject. Like, an actual warmth in his stomach. “You think, Oh, I don't like the food, or the people. I can't watch any of my shows. I can't hear my language. Homesick. But there's no choice, for players like us.” He turns in his seat to look up at Leon, who straightens out of his hunch in response. Their heads had gotten a bit close. “You never considered the Czech Republic?”

“My father thought Canada was a better option.”

“I was talking to Mark today. Even a country like Switzerland, only Roman stayed. Luca and Nino both played some junior in Canada.”

“Anything to give a better chance I guess. I never been in a country that takes hockey so serious before.”

“Hmm. I still think it's a shame.” He turns back to the slideshow and feels Leon lean back in too. The hotel room only has the one chair. “Oh,” he says. “Sorry. Why don't we - “ There's the couch, but Anže has unloaded all his luggage onto it. He stands up and unplugs the tablet, then goes to sit on the bed. “This will be more comfortable.” He pats a spot next to him. “Well, come.” Leon sits, but stiffly. Anže jostles him with his elbow. “Relax, fuck. Here.” He hands over the computer.

Leon lets out a breath, then flops down onto the bed. He holds the tablet up in front of his face, elbows slightly bent out. After a second, he chuckles.

“What?”

“No, nothing.”

Anže lies down too. Their shoulders bump up against each other. He squints against the light and focuses on the screen. It's just him and Gasper. “What?”

“Only – the mustaches.”

“Oh, those. It was November.”

He puts his thumb over Gasper. “How old is he here?”

“How old? Um. Let me think.” That was 2012, and Gasper was born in, hm, August. So, wait. “20, he would have been 20. He aged out of junior that year. He was playing in North America before.”

“It's a good mustache on him for 20. Almost as good as yours.”

“Good genes.”

“He must have been glad to have you there with him.”

“It worked for both of us. I did want to keep him company. Help his game a little. But I kept myself sharp too.” There's a stretch of silence, but one that feels like it's tipping on the verge of being filled up. A pregnant silence, that's what it's called. Anže figures that Leon has something to say but is too embarrassed to say it right away. He waits patiently for it.

Eventually Leon does get it out. “I wish I had an older brother had come to Canada with me.”

“Hey.” He puts out an arm and Leon obligingly raises his head so he can get it around his neck. “You know, we don't have too much time to get it done, but if you want we can grow a mustache together. A tournament mustache. You've got some good growth here, I think it turns out well. You will have to shave the chin though, that's the rules.”

“Oh,” says Leon. There's a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

“No?”

“I mean, if you want to,” he says, politely.

He must like his look right now. Idly, Anže holds his knuckles near to Leon's jaw, brushes past once – the beard is a tick closer to the sparse side than the full, but the individual hairs are long enough to be soft. He can admit to being pleased that Leon would shave if Anže insisted. Not that he would make him do it. “Well,” says Anže. “Nevermind. But we Europeans have to stick together, right?”

“Sure. What does that involve?”

“Just this, I guess. I don't really know. But it sounded good, right? Stick together?” He turns his head to better smile at Leon and gives his shoulder a squeeze while he's at it.

They lie like this together for a few minutes. The slideshow ends and the screen goes dark, and Leon lets the tablet slide out of his hands and fall to the covers by his side. Then he rolls up on one elbow and puts his other hand right on Anže's chest. His face has gone all soft and dreamy.

Anže thinks, what?, and then it's too late. He's being kissed. Not the best kiss: awkward, softly hesitant. There's something cute about that. Endearing. Leon tastes very strong but also just a bit sweet, which is about how a young man should taste. But, no. Anže grabs Leon's right collarbone and puts some strength into it, tightens his grip to be sure Leon – who will be paying attention to other things at the moment – notices. Then he shoves away, frowning as he does. It's a confused frown, not an angry one. He's trying to work out how the night could have led so inexorably to this moment, this mistaken impression.

Leon sees the frown and first blanches ghost pale. “Shit!” he says. When he's cursing he sounds more German, a slight blur into harshness. “Damned shit. Oh my god.” He covers his face with one large palm. Between the fingers Anže can see red beginning to bloom. “Anže, I'm so sorry.” The words come out muffled.

“It's alright.” Looking back, he's beginning to feel guilty.

“Shit. Stupid, stupid.” He sits up. “I'll go now.”

“Wait.” Anže sits up too and wraps an arm around his waist to hold him in place. “Wait up.”

Leon squirms, then abruptly goes still.

“If I let you leave right now, are you going to lie in bed all night thinking and getting no sleep?”

A pause. “No,” says Leon. It's the most miserable syllable Anže has ever heard.

“You're going to have to lie better than that.” He hugs Leon closer. If he tried really hard, he bets he could tuck Leon at least partway under his shoulder. But right now it's probably better not to touch him that much. “It's no big deal, man. I'm not upset. Hmm? Say okay.”

“Okay.”

He sounds less miserable than before. Anže lets him go. “If you're going to be so bold, you're going to have to learn to handle a little rejection.”

“No, it's just I never - “

Anže raises an eyebrow and breaks in, “Never what? Been rejected before?”

“No, no,” he protests. “I have. Just never tried, uh. Never tried to, you know, with someone I actually look up to.” He winces. “Man. I sound like a tool.”

“No, not really,” says Anže. He thinks about it. “You have to respect people, but you don't have to look up to them. Maybe you even shouldn't look up to them. If you're going to be kissing them, anyway.” He does his own grimace. “Sorry. I'm not your father. Uh, obviously.” Damn. “Here.” He opens his arms. “Hug it out.”

They hug. Anže pats Leon on the back. “Sleep well,” he says. “Sweet dreams.”

 


	4. A sweet dream.

He's sucking himself off. He's on his knees and he's sucking a man, who is himself, off. He supposes this is every guy's fantasy, but since he's not able to feel himself being sucked off, actually maybe not. He's only experiencing the point of view of the man who is doing the sucking. The man is very into it, so Anže is also very into it, though part of him – the more rational, cataloging part – isn't, because, well. That's himself he's having sex with.

Confusing.

Anže (not him, the dreamer, but him, the one in the dream: the dreamed) is sitting at the edge of a bed. His thighs are spread very wide. For unknown reasons, he's wearing a mustache. Dream Anže has a pretty big sensory question mark for taste and smell (though there's a hint of Anže's deodorant in there, filtered through someone else's nose and rendered erotic), and he has very symmetrical pubes, while Real Anže's hair goes a tick further down his right thigh than his left. Real Anže has a mole that whoever has constructed Dream Anže has missed. Also, Dream Anže has a bigger penis. Real Anže can't decide if that's amusing or annoying. Maybe both.

The man whose dream Anže is sharing – okay, obviously it's Leon – is getting close. Obligingly, Dream Anže is also getting close which would be impressive coordination, except for the fact that he only exists in Leon's head, so. Sensations of heat and pressure sharpen and press down from all sides; his body feels locked down. Immobilized. Dream Anže cups Leon/Anže's chin roughly with a huge hand and scrubs at his stubble, then tightens almost painfully on his jawbone. Dream Anže's thighs shake and tremble. Something warm hits the back of Leon/Anže's throat -

Anže wakes up. Did he? It feels like he did. He moves his hand in underneath the covers to check. Huh, wow. He learned about wet dreams as a teenager, but never ended up ever having one. It's kinda wild to be almost 30 at the time of his first wet dream.

And to have it be one where he's giving himself oral, that too. Also wild.

Today they're flying to Toronto. No more exhibition games. The World Cup is going to start in a few days time. On the plane, he tells Leon to come follow him to sit; Leon blinks but doesn't protest. Anže takes them all the way to the back of the plane, where a deferential spot has been left open for him. Before sitting, he rousts Chara out from the row in front, mouthing, “I'll tell you about it later,” at the ensuing question mark of a look. No one is behind them.

The plane takes off. People settle into their novels or their movies or their card games. Perfect privacy. Leon is pecking at his phone – the plane is equipped with wireless. “Leon,” says Anže, then again, louder. “Leon.”

He looks up and tugs off one bud of his earphones. Low volume beat and rhythm spill out. “Yeah?”

“You have a dream about me last night?”

Leon blinks very rapidly. “What?” he asks, half a second late and slightly strangled.

“A dream. About me. Last night?”

There's an unsubtle fit of coughing. Leon mumbles, “Uh, well, normally I don't remember my dreams.” His pupils wander off towards the window, then dart back to Anže's face.

“Okay.” It's cute how hard he's trying to avoid lying. “Normally you don't, but do you remember one from last night? About me, maybe? You know.” He clears his throat. “A _dream_.”

Now more mumbles, even more mumbly than before. Unintelligible.

“Speak up, please.”

“How did you know?”

“I think I had your same dream.” Anže snaps his fingers. “And there was another one about me. Before. I think - “ he tries to remember. “Yes, your family must have been having dinner. And you were watching me play hockey on TV.” He pauses. So that's two. Strange. “Why am I sharing your dreams?”

“I don't know and I really wish you weren't,” Leon says, in the tiny voice of a man currently dying a thousand shame-related deaths. He has also made his body very small in his seat.

“Okay,” says Anže, slowly. He'll have to do some detective work. As for now though, “Um, good talk. You want me to leave you alone now? But don't think I'm upset!” He pats Leon's knee. “You know, I'm sure lots of people have dreamed about having sex with me. Hundreds. Thousands?”

“Kopi.”

“People definitely dream about having sex with you too, and it doesn't bother you. I don't know if anyone besides you has ever dreamed about us having sex with each other, but I guess it's pos - ”

“Kopi, please!”

“Okay, okay. I'm stopping. I'm leaving.” He puts his hands up. “Have a good flight.”

 


	5. First star, too.

The first person he asks is Chara, because he owes him an explanation for shooing him out of his seat. “Hey, big man,” he says, after they've touched down and been shuttled to the hotel. No team business until tomorrow; they're on their own until then. People are clumping in the lobby talking about football and making dinner plans. “Sorry about in the plane. I had something to talk about with Leon.”

“It's no problem. What about Leon?”

“Oh, you know. Only the little – the little puppy crush.”

“Still?” He shrugs. “What's there to talk about?”

Anže hesitates for a second, but it's only Chara. “It's maybe more intense than you usually see.”

“Ah,” he says. He shrugs again. “That's more common than you seem to think, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” He smiles at Anže. “You haven't noticed before. Now that you're a new captain, maybe you'll pay more attention to what goes on.”

Wow. He wonders if anyone has ever had a crush on Brownie. And why not? They should. Dustin is a fine man. Good role model. Nice body, too. Well, Anže can admit he's a little biased. “One more thing?”

“Go ahead.”

“Have you had any, hm.” How to put it. “Any strange dreams lately?”

“Strange dreams.”

“Yeah.”

“No, no strange dreams, but now that you bring this up. My emotions have been out of place, kind of, like, not my own.”

Anže frowns. “Give an example?”

“Okay, second game against North America. The whole last period I felt shitty. Not just shitty because were were getting blown out. Personally shitty.” That's the game Leon played only five minutes of. “Or just yesterday, first I felt anxious, like bubbles in my stomach. And then very suddenly I was ashamed. My chest burned. But all I was doing at the time was lying in bed.”

“That's Leon,” he says, thinking out loud. “That has to be Leon.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't have much of an idea yet, but something's up with Leon. Can you ask the other guys if they've felt these things too? Don't tell them anything, but ask. We'll try and figure it out later.”

He puts the whole Leon situation out of his head for their first game of the tournament. Not many are expecting them to win, but USA plays poorly. Over aggressive, too many mistakes. Frankly, they don't seem to be very good. (Sorry, Quickie.) Europe plays a careful, disciplined game. Tight defense and good goaltending, especially in the third. Just how Anže likes it.

On the bench for the final seconds, he feels pretty giddy. He's pretty sure it's his own giddiness; one of life's great pleasures is proving the haters wrong. But some of it might be Leon's? With the game over, he can go back to thinking about that whole problem. Getting off the ice he almost asks Chara about it, before remembering he's got a mic on. So he settles for a significant look instead.

He does a few interviews. He ices down a few minor scrapes and bruises. His pulse returns to normal. The media clears out. He hangs around, until finally Chara taps him on the shoulder.

“Sorry. I'm high maintenance these days.” Chara looks over at one of the side rooms where there's a hot tub setup. “Let's have a soak. It helps me sleep.”

“Okay.” They go. Chara fiddles with the temperature. Anže closes his eyes and lets himself sink lower and lower underneath the waterline. He can feel the warmth slowly radiating deeper into his body.

“I talked to the guys,” Chara reports, finally. “They're having the same thing. Strange emotions. Mark had a good word for them. What was it? Intrusive. He called them intrusive.”

Anže sits up. “You didn't say anything to them about Leon? I don't want them all over his business. Chirping him.”

“No, no. I didn't mention the boy. They've got no idea.”

“Okay, good.” He thinks about this apparent team mental link that's sprung up on them and draws a big fat blank. “Any bright ideas?”

Chara hums, two notes, then shrugs. “Fuck it. Why don't you take him to bed with you?”

What. “What?”

“Take him to bed with you.”

“How would that help?”

“He wants it, maybe calms down after, we stop feeling these things. Everyone goes back to normal.”

“That's a fucking nonsense idea.”

“Come on, Anže,” he scoffs. “Don't act like it would be such a hardship.”

Leon chooses this moment to arrive in the doorway. He's wearing a towel wrapped around his waist. Could be worse; could be over his shoulder instead, or around his neck. “How's the water?” he asks.

Chara flicks his eyes up and down Leon's body, then turns to raise an eyebrow and make an annoying face at Anže. He also waves his hand lazily in the air. “Good,” he says. “Fine.”

“No room right now, Drai,” says Anže. “Zee is too big. Come back later.”

“See?” says Chara, after Leon has nodded and wandered off. “Not such a hardship.”

“It's not about that,” says Anže. “He'd make me uncomfortable, with that sparkling look in his eye the whole time. You know what he said to me the other night? That he looks up to me. It's very flattering and to be teammates is fun and games, but I'm not going to – no. I'm not going to do – what you said.”

Okay.” Chara shrugs, unbothered. “Just food for thought. A suggestion.”

A thought. A suggestion. Except now the idea is in his head. And it had been a quick exit, last year, leading to a long, restful summer. He just played a game but he doesn't feel it so deeply. There's still energy to burn, blood up in his veins, a shot of testosterone from the win. Maybe the soak tamped Chara's body down, but Anže's has other ideas. He catches himself watching Leon go to the hot tub room, and then he finds himself lingering. Waiting.

Leon comes out. Now the towel is actually around his neck. All of his skin is flushed. He looks almost blissful.

Anže would like to say he goes over without thinking about it, that he acts and speaks without any conscious, deliberate thought. But that would be a lie. He makes the decision, and then he walks over, and he can't say how much is idle desire and how much is the idea Chara put in his head, but. “Buddy,” he says. “Hey.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“Come up to my room tonight.” Anže gives him a certain kind of look. Long and full of promise; roaming eyes.

Leon swallows hard and looks like he's caught between wanting to turn away and wanting to stay and listen. “You're fucking with me,” he says.

Anže sighs. He leans in; the air between them feels super-heated. Steamed. Leon stills. “Leo,” he says, right in close, by the ear. “ _Come to my room later.”_ This works, judging by the way it makes Leon shiver. Anže straightens back up, trails a hand over and down Leon's shoulder, and goes to get ready to leave.

So Leon comes up later. Nothing much like last time. Anže opens the door and sees him in blue basketball shorts branded with an oil drop and a white tee with a yawning v-neck. He seems – unpackaged, in the way that men get to be. Just some cotton and the strong heft of his shoulders, most strikingly, and the broad stretch of his chest to match. The only thing he smells like is his body and his shampoo, and the shampoo only distantly.

“There you are,” says Anže. He closes the door. “What do you like? Let's do what you like.”

Afterwards, Leon wants to stay close. He rests his cheek on Anže's chest; one hand on Anže's stomach; the top of a foot pressed flat against Anže's calf. It reminds Anže of his youth, napping in the afternoon sun with Gasper many many years ago, a child and a toddler, and how every time Anže had moved away Gasper had shifted half a beat later, to keep at least one point of contact. An elbow, a shoulder, the soles of his feet. Toes. A longing for touch.

It's too warm to be comfortable, but it's tolerable for now. Soon he can pull away. He just needs to kiss Leon's hair and soothe him and wait for him to fall into a deep sleep. It doesn't take long.

In the morning Leon has curled up to him again and most of the covers and pillows – hotel beds always have so many pillows – have been dumped to the ground. Anže moves Leon's arms and legs gently aside and goes to wash his face and brush his teeth. He's very curious to know if sleeping with Leon worked to solve their problem, and when he texts Chara to ask learns that everyone is already down in the lobby having breakfast.

He's standing in the elevator chiming down through the floors when he realizes that he shouldn't have left the room without holding a morning-after talk. Well, maybe he can deliver some good news when they do. Fingers crossed. He does make sure to text Leon that he's gone to breakfast, and then steps out into the lobby.

Chara has monopolized a large booth entirely for himself. For food, there is a plate of bacon, a plate of eggs, a plate with two muffins, three pieces of toast and stray sausages, and one bowl of oatmeal. For drink, there is a glass of water, a glass of either soda or iced tea (probably tea), a glass of orange juice, a glass of milk, and a mug of coffee. He has also spread out an entire newspaper, with many of the inside pages pulled out and folded this way and that and then neatly piled away. Right now, he's either reading editorials or looking at political cartoons. And eating the oatmeal.

“Good morning,” says Anže. He slides into the booth. The seats are very cushy. “Who reads newspapers anymore?”

“I'm an old man,” says Chara, without looking up. Definitely reading the cartoons. “I have habits. And I like the way I can put my hands on it and reorganize things. Physically. Spatially.” He sighs. “This green duck is such bullshit.” He flips the page. Now he appears to be looking at real estate listings? “Do you want some bacon?”

“Maybe later.” He drums his fingers on the table top. “So, about Leon.”

Chara looks up. “What about him?”

“Well.” He looks around and then drops his voice. “I did what you suggested.”

“Oh, trust me. I know.”

“You – what?”

“I know what you did. You showed him a very nice time.” With his hand and arm he sketches out a moving wave – first cresting up, then swooping down, then up again, slower, then crashing straight down, which Chara illustrates by dipping his hand all the way under the table. “I had a nice time too. Two nice times.” The set of his mouth looks briefly apologetic. “Me and the whole team, I would guess. Good work, captain.”

Anže puts his arm down on a pile of newsprint and then carefully rests his forehead on it.

“Now that I think about it,” says Chara, thoughtfully, “that was a very bad idea.”

“You think?” says Anže, to the table. “I told you.”

“Next time, I will listen.” With a snap, Chara straightens out the pages he was reading and then folds them neatly to stack with the others – Anže can hear the rustling. “It's been getting worse.” He pauses for a second. “More and more is coming through. Today I can, yeah. Huh. Did you leave him sleeping upstairs? He's awake now and feeling abandoned.”

“Dammit.” Still to the table. Anže sighs and raises his head. He should go back up.

“Oh, wait. He's starting to calm himself down. I think he's decided that he's overreacting. Good head on his shoulders, huh? I'll leave you to talk with him. Have the bacon.” He takes his coffee with him when he stands up, as well as the sports section of the newspaper, which is still sharply creased and looks unread as-of-yet. He rolls the paper up and smacks Anže in the shoulder with a side that shows a slice of a picture of some baseball player; it might be Bautista. “Don't worry. We'll think of something else.”

A few minutes after Chara leaves, Leon makes his way downstairs. He sees Anže and smiles sweetly but doesn't come over right away. Instead he goes first to get food. Anže pokes at the bacon Chara left. It's going cold and many of the pieces are burnt and quickly becoming more fat-stiff than crisp. Over at the buffet, Leon is taking his time to assemble a huge meal. When he comes over he has two plates and two mugs of coffee. Across his tray are scattered various packets of jam and creamer. “I saw you don't have any fruit,” he says. He gives Anže another smile. It's even more sweet up close. “So I brought you some. And a coffee.”

“Oh,” says Anže, awkwardly. This is going to suck. “Thank you.”

Leon takes the fruit off his tray and slides it towards Anže, then does the same for the coffee until the mug bumps up against the stack of newspaper. One rich drop splashes out. “Paper?” he asks, with a curious tilt to his voice. He casts his eyes over the columns of text then shrugs and pulls out his phone. Lifts a fork to his mouth.

Anže spends some time pondering how best to let him down gently.

“You aren't drinking your coffee,” says Leon. He pulls the mug closer to him and blows over the top. “Too hot?”

Okay, dragging this out is cruel. “Drai, about last night.”

He freezes over the mug. His lips are pursed. Steam lifts up past his face.

“See, I didn't mean to, uh. Give you an impression – wait. Let me start over. I wasn't, or, it didn't mean that I - “

“I get it,” says Leon. Too loudly.

Anže automatically looks up to check who's listening. Then he notices that, actually, the entire dining room has gone quiet and all of the hockey players that were bent over their plates shoveling food into their mouths are now head up and looking around each other. Frowning, grimacing, wincing. Mark has a hand over his heart. This is bad. “Leon - “

“I get it,” he says, again, quieter. He stands up and takes his tray. “Thank you for being honest.”

 


	6. No past, no future.

He's driving. The city feels like Edmonton. It's the street signs, the weather, something about the shape of the clouds and the way the buildings to either side of him look. He pulls up to the driveway of a tidy two story with half timbered gables and brick veeners and the keys are in his right hand and an Oilers bag is in his left.

He unlocks the door. He has a dog, a golden retriever jumping at his feet. He has Anže Kopitar, coming for him down the hallway. He has his happiness and this super luxuriant feeling of warmth in his chest. “Leo!” says this Anže, catching him in a bear hug. “How was the Atlantic division?”

“Good,” he says. “But I'm glad to be home.”

(So, that's annoying. Why would Anže have to move up to where Leon is playing? But, okay, it's a fantasy after all, cut the boy some slack. This could be ten years in a retired future. Though if it's a fantasy, Anže isn't sure why Leon couldn't have dreamed himself into a better organization. Loyalty? There is something to be said for loyalty. Possibly. A small something.)

But something's wrong. “Home?” Dream Anže says, stepping back. A gap yawns open between them, a swirling void. Black and hungry. Dream Anže smiles, and it's very gentle and pitying and thus exquisitely, exquisitely cruel. “You think this is your home?”

The gap is growing, the floor is shattering away, sharp fragments splintering, being swallowed whole –

“This isn't your home, and your dreams mean nothing.”

Anže wakes up in a cold sweat, cringing at the echo of his own voice in his head.

At practice, he goes over and knocks at the corner of Leon's stall, like a penitent seeking an audience. “Drai?” he asks.

“What?” Leon doesn't look over. He's already all buckled in – shoulders, elbows, cup, shins – and he's got a hand on his chest moving back and forth like he's trying to settle things right over his shoulders, or make sure the straps aren't loose.

“Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” he says. “I can handle rejection. You don't need to check up on me.”

“But – ”

“Good talk,” he says, and pulls his jersey on. When his head pops free, his hair has been rustled about in all directions. He runs a calming hand through it before leaving. First one dressed. He's going to be on the ice half an hour early.

Anže sighs and goes plodding back to his own stall. Mark sees him and asks, “You too?”

“Me too what?”

“Feeling down?” Mark drops heavily down to the bench with an oof even though he's not wearing much of anything and isn't weighted down. Physically at least. “It's been shitty for me for days. Started a few mornings ago, at breakfast. It was like, heartburn or something dying in my chest. Felt awful. Terrible.”

“Yeah, about that,” says Anže. “Don't tell the others – except Chara, Chara already knows – but.” And he tells him the full story.

“You're shitting me.”

“No, honest to god.”

“Well,” he says, after a digestive pause. “A touch of heartbreak for young Leon, huh? He'll get over it. You know,” he says. “This happens more often than you might think. Now that you're a new captain, you'll notice - “

“Yes, yes, so I hear,” says Anže over him, glumly. “But what about the weird mind stuff?”

“That, I don't know. That's my first time hearing that. Maybe it stops when the tournament ends?”

“God, I hope so.” He knuckles between his eyes. “I wanted to solve this problem for him. And for us. But I made it worse.”

Mark hums. “Good intentions,” he says, somewhat ominously.

They win against the Czech Republic in overtime. (Thanks, Leon.) They lose to Canada, but that's okay. They beat Sweden, again. (Thanks, Tom.) And then it's back to Canada for the final. The Sun runs articles with melodramatic titles – _Loss to Europe by Canada would never be forgotten her_ _e,_ really, this is hardly the Olympics _–_ full ofbackhanded compliments for Anže's team. If he was the kind of person to get worked up about that, he'd be angry. Proving everyone wrong again would be great though.

They lose game one; they lose game two. There is no upset. Frans gets a little choked up doing media. His lower lip trembles. Mark calls the loss heartbreaking. He's got something of a way with words, Mark does. The locker room after is not a happy place. Lot of guys with slumped shoulders, staring off into space. Anze has lost series before. The emotion tonight is keen and raw in a way he doesn't understand. Even he's not immune – he can feel both his own disappointment and underneath it something low and visceral, coiling hot and salty in his gut.

What he needs is to sit in his hotel room and for the entire world to be very still and very quiet while he's doing so. So he can decompress. And then someone knocks on his door.

It's Leon. “I know it's dumb,” he blurts out, the second the door swings open and he sees Anže's face. “It was a made up tournament and we were a made up team. But I wanted to win for you so badly. I thought – thought it might make you take a second look at me. I thought it might make you proud.

“Leo, I am proud of you. Of everyone. Look at me, hey? Look at me. I'm already proud.”

“Kopi, can we just.” He takes a step closer, then another. He puts his hand, heavy and warm, on Anže's waist. “I know it doesn't, didn't mean anything to you. But can we just, again. I want you so bad. I never felt like this before.”

Anže drops his arm down. He covers Leon's hand with his own – their fingers curl and almost struggle against each other. In the shadow of his own heartbeat is one that's hopeful and aching and trembling. For a second his confidence cracks. “How can you be so sure I'll make you happy? You barely know me at all.”

“I don't know,” says Leon. He steps into Anže and bulls his head blindly in; Anže has to catch and hold him still. Steady. Steady. “I don't know.”

“What am I going to do with you?” Anže whispers into his hair. Leon doesn't respond but he does grip Anže tighter. “You should go to sleep, you'll feel better in the morning. Come on. You'll stay here tonight.” The bed is made up, the sheets tucked firmly in. Anže considers marching a pillow barrier down the middle, but discards the idea as soon as he has it. Leon sits quietly on the bed while Anže brushes his teeth. Then they both climb onto their respective sides of the mattress. Anže turns off the light. “Goodnight,” he says.

 


	7. Hundred nation hero.

He sleeps fitfully, and dreams about Toronto. The whole city; its people. Their fears and desires. A girl wants a friend, a woman wants a promotion, a man wants to be a father. Greed and pride and spite and ambition. It's a fever inside him; he can feel his body burning up and his eyes churning back and forth in their sockets. Maybe he wakes to chug down water from bottles and to piss, but if he does, it's foggy. He suffers under the thirst and hunger and lust of a thousand thousand bodies.

Finally, he wakes up. He cracks one eyelid and squints balefully against the light trickling in from the window. His mouth is a dry fuzz swamp. If he had to describe his physical condition to a trainer right now, he'd say it feels like a garbage truck ran him over – or, even worse, the entire roster of the Anaheim Ducks – and then backed up to finish the job. It feels like he just fought off an illness, an infection.

Leon is gone. Anže feels powerfully, powerfully hungry. And thirsty. Not as hungry and thirsty as he was when he dreamed he was inhabiting the municipality of Toronto, but still pretty bad. His water bottles are all empty so he drinks from the bathroom tap instead. He's too parched to be squeamish about where his water comes from.

Then he goes to the bathroom, he washes his face, he checks his face in the vanity. He looks about as bad as he feels. Now that his thirst is satisfied, hunger is moving into its place in the forefront of his mind. The strange dreams are over and beginning to fade now, from his memory, but he is left with a odd urge for peanut butter on apple slices, which strikes him as a very North American kind of food pairing.

Going back into the rest of the room, he first checks his phone and finds that he forgot to plug it in and it ran out of power overnight. Which is strange, because he remembers it being at a decent charge. 30, 40%. He hooks it up to the charger, but it stays dead. Huh. He thinks to check the alarm clock and sees a blank, empty face. So, power outage. But that doesn't explain why his phone battery drained so fast.

Well. Power's out so of course the TV won't turn on. But the landline in the room doesn't work either, which is unexpected. He's standing there turning the phone handle back and forth in his hands, thinking about how strange it is to put a phone to his ear and not hear a dial tone, when he becomes aware of a different kind of silence.

No traffic. No general city sounds, the hub, the bub. None of that. The hotel is in a pretty busy area. He crosses the room to the window and throws the blinds open. Out on the street below, there's two lines of parked traffic. And its not because the lights are red: the lights are not on. There are no lights on, anywhere, and there are cars sitting in the middle of the street like Toronto has turned into a parking lot. Some of the cars have their doors wide open. He doesn't see any people.

Something's wrong.

Thankfully the door reader – battery powered? – still accepts his card so he doesn't have to worry about locking himself out his room. He slips out into the hallway. No noise here either, and it would be dark except that up and down the corridor there's a few doors open letting in the sunlight. The air is very still, except for one or two motes of fluttering dust. “Hello?” says Anže, into the silence. Nothing. He heads for the stairs. On the way he passes by a few plates of room service left for pickup; the food scraps look like they're verging onto a few days old. How long did he sleep? It would explain why his stomach is growling at him like he hasn't eaten in days.

Fuck, he's hungry. He takes the stairs down several steps at a time, making enough of a racket that he doesn't realize there are people rustling around the lobby until he sees them.

The lobby floor has two sit-down restaurants on either side, but right in front of the stairwell there's also a cafe for small, quick items like sandwiches and muffins and coffee. The cafe has a deli and a bakery counter, both of which are now broken into. A super hairy man – like, all over his back – in pajama bottoms, and a woman in her underwear, are rooting through the goods and babbling, _hungry, hungry,_ to each other. As Anže watches, a spiced morsel of pastrami falls from the man's open, slavering mouth.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Something heavy thuds to the floor and makes the ground shake; Anže nearly jumps out of his skin. Looking towards the noise, he sees a group of people have managed to knock a vending machine over on its side. Then they start bashing into it, like, ramming with their bodies, kicking, crashing, draping themselves over it and drumming down with their elbows, as if that is going to make the drinks vend out.

Okay. Anže very quietly turns around and goes back up the stairs. He has a sinking feeling that this is related to Leon, whose floor is two flights above Anže's. But when he makes it up there, the door is closed and locked. He presses his ear up against the wood to see if he can hear anything. Maybe someone is in there? But it's hard to tell.

Then he hears the squeak of wheels. He looks up. There's a maid pushing a cart towards him. She's holding a spray-bottle in her hands, and as she comes down the hallway she sprays it at random intervals, in random directions. “Good job,” she says, pleasantly, to no one in particular. Her eyes are locked right in front of her, fixed on the far wall. “Want to do a good job.” She goes right past Anže and runs over his right foot in the process.

“Wait!” says Anže. He shakes his foot out - “Wait! - and then grabs hold of the cart.

She tries to keep going for a few seconds. The cart shakes in place; some small bottles of shampoo dislodge and tumble to the ground. Then she comes around to him. “Good job,” she says, to his chest. She sprays his knee. Sudsy cleaning fluid starts to run down his jeans.

“Uh. I think – I think you need to clean this room.” He points at the door.

“Clean?”

“Yes. Please. This room needs cleaning.”

“Cleaning.” She takes out a keycard and sticks it in the reader. The light beeps green. Then she stares down at the doorknob like she's never seen one before. “Clean?”

“Yes! Yes. Great work.” He lets go of the cart and awkwardly pats her on the back. “Thank you.”

She smiles an off-centered smile at him, then goes back around to her cart. The wheels squeak as she passes by. Anže takes a deep breath. He opens the door. Nearby, he can hear the spray-bottle resume its puffing.

Inside the room is – Leon. Lying in bed, on top of the covers. “Lonely,” he's in the middle of sighing. Then he looks up. “Kopi?”

Anže experiences a flood of relief. “Hey, you okay?” He walks closer.

Wait.

Leon is not okay. His eyes are unfocused, like the others, but he also has his eerie, too wide smile on now. “Kopi,” he says, then tries to tug Anže down. His mouth is open; the tip of his tongue is set right there, just barely visible. Pink.

Anže jerks back. “Come on, bud.”

Leon sighs, again. He flops down to the bed. “Sad,” he announces.

“Yeah, alright, fuck.” Anže sits on the bed. “Are you the one causing this?”

“Sad,” repeats Leon.

Helpful. Anže has no idea what the do. He casts about the room. On the desk is a newspaper. He goes to take a look.

“For you,” says Leon, from the bed.

Anže turns back to look at him; he does seem more lucid than the others. But he doesn't say anything else.

The date on the paper is the day after their loss to Canada, which Anže is mostly sure now is not today, but maybe yesterday, or the day before yesterday. The cover story is about a sudden illness in Toronto. The editing is hurried – Anže spots a few typos – but the story includes the number of cases (more than two thousand, as of 2:30 AM), as well as interviews with a hospital director, the chief of police, the mayor, and the premier. There's a description of the extent of the disease's spread, given in terms of Toronto geography Anže is not familiar with, and also a report that a quarantine is being considered.

So that tells me him the what. It doesn't tell him the why, or, more importantly, the how (to fix this). He puts the paper down and sees Leon's phone, sitting on the desk where it had presumably been charging back when there was power in the city. He pounces on it. There's a string of frantic messages down the screen, all in German, all from almost half a day ago. Nothing since then, and currently no network access. He has some fuzzy thoughts about generators, and cell phone towers. The charge is – red. Five percent. Blinking at him. “Okay,” he decides. He slips the phone into his pocket. “Up.” He claps his hands. “Come on.”

“Kopi?” asks Leon, but doesn't move.

Anže blows out a breath. He sits on the bed and takes Leon's arm, slings it over his shoulder, and lifts both of them to their feet. “We're going outside to see if we can use your phone.”

Leon leans heavily against Anže. “I like you,” he says.

“Yeah, I know.” He tries to take a step and suffers a dizzy spell. His pulse thuds in his temples and his stomach is starting to growl again. He closes his eyes, then opens them. Right. “Let's get out of here. Can you walk on your own?” He lets him go; Leon sways but stays upright. Anže heads out of the room, and checks back to see Leon trailing, a few steps behind. Good.

They make their way down the stairs. Leon picks his way down ponderously, step by step, one by one. Anže knows he shouldn't bring the screen on the phone back on, but he can't help himself. Down to four percent. His gut tightens; he can feel himself break out in a sweat. At the back of his mind lurks a looming dizziness he's keeping at bay through sheer willpower. “C'mon, man,” he chides. “Let's go, pick it up. I'll give you a kiss at the bottom, okay?”

That proves motivating. Anže doesn't have the time or mental energy to feel guilty about it. At the bottom of the stairwell, he throws his arm out behind him to stop Leon. “Shh,” he says. “Quiet.” The thirst gang is still banging on the vending machine, and the couple in front of the deli has grown into a noisy crowd. The sounds they're making remind him of certain nature documentaries. Wild dogs on a carcass. Anže would rather not find out how they'd react to him and Leon. He turns to look at Leon. “Shh,” he repeats. He puts a finger first to his lips, then to Leon's lips. “Shh.”

Leon blinks, then nuzzles at Anže's finger with his nose.

“We're going to hug the wall, okay?” Anže whispers. They hug the wall and go round, around, and to a side exit. Either no one in the lobby notices or no one cares. Out in the sunlight, he whips the phone out again. Network access is – searching, searching, 2G? Good enough. And then the phone starts to vibrate non-stop in his hand; he almost drops it. “What the fuck.” A ton of notifications are coming in. The battery falls to three percent, two percent, dropping. “Fuck! Leon, I need your thumb.” They unlock the phone together; Leon uses this opportunity to try and kiss him. “Later, later,” says Anže. He pulls up the chat thread nearest his finger – Leon's mother, he thinks – and starts furiously texting.

_We're stuck in Toronto; By hotel; Send help,_ are the three messages he gets out before the phone dies on him.

What now? While considering their next move, he brushes Leon's hair back and smacks him a kiss on the center of his forehead. Then he hands him back his phone. “Maybe we should stay outside,” he says. Speaking out loud helps him gather his thoughts, even if none of it is getting through to his conversation partner. “That way we'll be able to see them coming.” How would they come? Helicopter, maybe? The streets are probably jammed for miles. Leon is frowning down at the phone in the palm of his hands. “Put that in your pocket.” Anže looks around. “We can wait here? Or, hey.” Find a charger in one of the abandoned vehicles? “Come on, let's go check things out.”

They're in a courtyard-type area with some shops, but the street should be right around the bend. They turn the corner and run right into a disperse crowd of people. Anže doesn't remember seeing movement on the streets below from his window, but that might have been a different side of the hotel.

The specific women they ran into is wearing a Team Canada hat and wielding a legit hockey stick, which seems extreme even for Toronto. “Whoops,” says Anže, already raising his right foot to back up.

“Beat Europe!” she says. Then she raises her stick and tries to spear him.

“Fucking hell, lady!” He dodges to the side. People are out here trying to commit majors now. “What are you doing?”

The stick blade wavers in the air; she lets it droop down a little. “Canada?”

“Uh, yeah. That's what I am. Canadian. Sorry for running into you,” he adds. It's a good thing he sounds like a native. The fake interviews in English he insisted on practicing as a kid just never stop paying dividends.

“Canada. Gold. Best.”

“Mm-hmm,” he says, placatingly, while carefully sidling around and away, being careful not to take his eyes off her or her weapon. “We sure are.”

“Fuck Canada,” says Leon, from behind them.

Hockey Canada lady cocks her head to the side at Leon with a loud crack. All up and down the street, in fact, heads are swiveling over. There is – a lot of people. Suddenly. Moving. Emerging from the street. And from cars.

This situation is worsening. Anže turns to look at Leon, to frown forbiddingly at him. It doesn't do any good.

Leon takes a deep breath. “Fuck Canada!” he bellows out, to everyone in a two block radius.

So that's bad.

Anže darts back and firmly clamps his hand over Leon's mouth. “Good talking to you,” he says to the woman, while also bodily dragging Leon back in the direction of the hotel. “Have a nice day.” Then he smartly turns them about, gives Leon's back a push towards the hotel, and prepares to make a quick dash to relative safety.

And then skids to a dead stop. People are shuffling out of the hotel. The man in front is huge like a lumberjack and is wearing what looks to be a Crosby Olympics jersey, which really is awful luck when you stop to think about it. He's also got a silver can of diet Coke in his hand, which he crushes – crink – and then mangles into an aluminum wad with his fingers. Soda drips down his arm.

Horrifying. Time to panic. Anže grabs Leon's hand and on the fly calculates a diagonal path deeper into the plaza that takes them away from both threats. Then he runs, pulling Leon along besides him. By the time they dead-end up against the storefronts, the crowd behind them has clumped up into a proper mob. “Okay,” pants Anže. He eyes the door in front of them, and then rams into it with his shoulder. No. Okay. He steps back and kicks it up by the lock.

This is harder than it looks in the movies.

He looks over his shoulder at the mob – approaching at a slow but dogged pace, now worryingly close – and kicks the door again. One more time. The door splinters and starts to sag away from the frame and then they're through. It's a fancy sort of men's tailor shop within, small, family-business looking. It's hard to see too far inside without being able to turn the lights on, but that's where they're headed. He overturns racks and throws jackets and garment bags to the ground behind them as they go.

Deeper in, he finds a door to the back of the shop. Unfortunately it doesn't lock, or can only be locked with a key, but maybe a closed door will slow their pursuers down some. And he can make a barricade. There's a low level of light in the room from a single window, which is enough to see by for him to push around carts, furniture, boxes, until he's piled up enough junk that he can no longer get within two feet of the door.

He sits on one of the boxes at the outskirts of the barricade to catch his breath. Leon is standing in the middle of the now mostly cleared backroom, looking up at the dusty ceiling with an expression of mild interest. Beyond the door in the main shop there are the loud noises of a horde of people blundering around.

Someone thumps up against the door. A pause. The knob rattles and the door opens maybe an inch before coming to a stop against a blocking chair leg. Another pause. Then several somethings slam against the door all at once. There's a sound like flailing limbs impacting on wood.

This is it, he thinks. The situation abruptly strikes him as absurd. Like, really? What a fucking way to go. “The dark side of Canadian hockey nationalism,” he says, wryly. Some gallows humor for the moment.

Leon stares back with perfect incomprehension, which squeezes all the humor right out of Anže.

“Ah, Leo,” he says, shaking his head. “What have we gotten ourselves into? What should I have done different?” It's too bad Dustin isn't here. If Dustin was here maybe they wouldn't have ended up trapped in a tux store by a mob of angry Canadians. One thing Dustin definitely wouldn't have done is sleep with Leon. “I don't know why I thought I could cure you by sleeping with you. I feel like I'm to blame for all this.”

Leon very slowly closes his eyes, then opens them again. He frowns, and there's a sharp edge to it that makes him look more human than Anže has noticed since this whole thing kicked off.

The door bangs open another inch, startling Anže into standing up. Several someones on the other side are now able to squeeze their arms in through the gap and scrabble and grasp away at the barricade. Bony, veiny hands. One finds a drawer full of shoes and starts throwing footwear; another finds a box of coat hangers and upends them onto the floor. It's a furious racket.

Anže ducks down; a wingtip goes flying past his head and just nearly misses Leon's face. He scans the room one more time for anything he can use as reinforcing material. And there, kind of set into a recessed corner – is that a staircase? He must have missed it in the shadows and bad lighting before, but now that all the furniture in the room has been piled up against the door it's pretty obvious. “Hey!” he says. “A way out.” He grabs Leon's hand.

The stairs wind up and up, very dark, and then there's a door out into the sunlight. Anže squints and shades his eyes. Looks like they've reached a fair-sized balcony on the rear wall of the plaza, overlooking a major street. There's two flower planters and a bench. Another dead end. Anže could find a way to safely climb down, but Leon can't in his current state. Briefly, Anže debates just tossing Leon over the edge. No, no. Better to stay here and defend the high ground choke-point by kicking down any Canadians trying to come up the stairs. He stations himself by the open door. A banging is coming from inside, growing louder.

“Anže?”

“Just a moment, bud. Little busy right now.” He squints down the stairs. It's dark down there but he thinks he sees movement?

Leon tugs insistently at his sleeve. “Anže, what you said back there. Is that the only reason you wanted to have sex with me?”

“Yeah, basically,” says Anže, distractedly. A bunch of guys shamble into view and Anže shifts his weight back and lifts up his foot – but then they all crumple as one, like a row of bowled pins or a field of scythed wheat, and tumble down the steps. A whole host of things occur to Anže at once. “Wait, what the fuck?” He whirls around. Leon is frowning at him, that same sharp frown he noticed earlier. “You're cured!” He whirls back to the stairs. There's a heap of groaning people and one guy mumbling curses in a dazed voice. “Is everyone cured?”

“I don't know. But what do you mean by bas – “ Exhaustion catches up to Anže and his body decides to go slack. Kaput. All the strings holding him up are cut and he falls against Leon, who stumbles before bracing Anže up. “By basically – oh, geez.”

“Can we sit down?” he asks, into Leon's shoulder. He's also maybe getting some drool on it.

They go and sit down on the wooden bench. It's faded from the sun and there are a few spots of bird poo. The planter to Anže's side is littered with cigarette butts. There's a very slight breeze. It's quite nice out. On the horizon there's a black, moving dot that's getting larger. Anže squints at it. “Is that a helicopter? Leon, stand up and wave your arms. I think our friends downstairs need medical attention.”

Leon stands up and waves his arms.

“Do they see you?”

“i don't know.”

“Wave faster.” He does. “You know,” says Anže, thoughtfully. “I hope the boys are all okay. You caused quite a lot of trouble.”

“Not on purpose,” he mutters. He stops waving his arms and sits back down. “You still haven't told me what you mean by basically.”

“Well, see, the thing is.” Anže scratches his neck. “Man, you're putting me on the spot. It wasn't all of the reason? Only part of it. But to tell the whole truth, I would never have approached you without – without that idea being in my head.”

Leon gives his head a slow, disbelieving shake. “I can't believe you tried to fix me with your body like that. And without telling me.”

“Yeah,” says Anže, sheepishly. He could blame Chara, but better to just own it. That's leadership. “When you put it like that. Not my brightest moment.”

“You're such an idiot.” He looks off into the distance at the helicopter, then back to Anže. “You could have been upfront at least. And you did it so lightly. Like you didn't consider me at all.”

“You're right. I don't know, I wasn't thinking,” he admits. “Or if I did think about it, I just thought you'd be happy. It's my bad.”

“I guess you did end up curing me after all. But with your assholeishness.” He sounds like one of the guys giving Anže a hard time, that same kind of tone. Not actually too upset.

The sound of helicopter blades beats closer and closer. “Had it all the way, man. Planned from the start.” He puts his index fingers on the outside corners of Leon's eyes and traces a soft, circling path down, like a pair of physics-defying teardrops. “I like you better now that the scales have fallen from your eyes,” he tells him.

Leon smiles. Closemouthed, and only to and for himself. A secret, personal smile. He sits back onto the bench, settles in, yawns. His left arm ends up smoothly around Anže's shoulder.

They sit together and listen to the swooping drone of the helicopter as it circles in.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You: Junco, when will you stop breaking your fic up into needless chapters just because you have a fetish for chapter titles?  
> Me: NEVER.


End file.
